so fill to me the parting glass
by ohlookrandom
Summary: In which John Watson tries to find something to help stop the nightmares. Post-Reichenbach.


Headcanon. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: No, I've been over this with you before...

* * *

_My harbor has a boat in it,  
The water makes its way around it;  
When the sun shines down the hills, winds blow-  
I miss you more._

* * *

_This is a bad idea_.

John Watson swallows nervously before reaching up to knock on the door of 221B Baker Street. This is a bad idea, he keeps repeating to himself, this is a _very _bad idea coming back to the home of Sher- his ex-flatmate. It's just asking for torture and pain and memories and-

The door swings open, and Mrs. Hudson appears in the doorway. She's usually small to begin with, but in the wake of her tenant's suicide, she seems to have grown smaller. _Is her hair thinner_? John tries not to think about how Sh- his best friend would have deduced all this in a single glance and probably her eating habits and a mound of other information, some necessary, some not.

Instead, he only stares at his previous landlady before the woman breaks the silence. "Hello, John," she says in a wavering tone, and he's alarmed to see that there are tears building up in her eyes. "What brings you to- to-" The first tear is slipping, and John, ever the gallant gentleman, feels responsible to help clean up the impending mess he's made.

"Don't cry, Mrs. Hudson," he says as gently as he can. "I've only come round to pick up a few things." _And check to see how you're doing_. He ascends the steps and gently takes the old lady by the shoulders, turning her around so he can begin steering her inside.

"Oh, how nice of you to stop by," Mrs. Hudson says, still in that same faint tone. "I'll make you a cuppa, shall I?"

"That'd be nice," John begins to say, but Mrs. Hudson is already fleeing towards the sanctity of her rooms, a small "_oh!_" escaping her lips as the tears spill over. John only sighs as he closes the door behind him. He hadn't _meant _to make a mess of things, but this was a right pretty kettle of fish.

He glances towards the steps, and some deducting skills must have rubbed off on him because he can clearly see that there are no footprints leading up and down the staircase. The sunlight is shining down on the floor, coating it in the finest layer of dust. John sighs again, remembering how he had left Baker Street as hurriedly as he had came after Sh- the _incident_. In retrospect, leaving only Mrs. Hudson to deal with removing the artefacts was probably not such a brilliant idea.

Somehow, he finds himself standing in the doorway to his old flat, staring ruefully at the state of the room around him. He remembers being here in the week after Sher- after Mycroft's brother's death, helping a sobbing Mrs. Hudson pack away the scientific equipment strewn across the kitchen table, the counters, the small coffee table littered with 124 kinds of tobacco ash (oh how John remembers the day he had been excruciatingly made aware of the fine differences between every type). They hadn't finished cleaning up that week- at least, John hadn't. He'd left with a quiet apology to a nodding landlady.

"Seems smaller, doesn't it?"

He turns to find Mrs. Hudson standing behind him, a tray with a pot of tea and two cups on it. Her hands are shaking, if the cups rattling against the tray are any indication. "I couldn't bring any new tenants in," she says at last, jerking her head at the room. "Couldn't. Sherlock had always been there and it just didn't feel right-" Her voice breaks.

John glances back at the room. "You should…" he starts, but he can't finish his sentence. There's nothing he _can _say, really. What sounds appropriate? _You should get over it. You should rent out the room. You should try calling me over so we can clean up his mess. _It all sound so callous.

Instead, he takes the tray from Mrs. Hudson. "Come on," he says, leading her into the kitchen. He glances at the fridge, wondering briefly if the severed thumbs are still in there, or the preserved eyes perhaps. Then he banishes the thought because it reminds him too much of the dead man.

He pours the sobbing lady a cup of tea and gently rubs circles in her back as she cries into the palms of her hands. Eventually, she gathers herself. "You said that you came to look for something," she reminds him, pulling at her sweater and dusting off lint from her lap.

"Oh, yes, well." John glances around the room. "Was wondering if I left a notebook here. Brown leather, sorta beat up-"

"It's downstairs, dear. I picked it up but never thought it was yours." Mrs. Hudson waves her hand at John as he stands up to go downstairs. "No, no, I'll get it. You just- stay here-" and she's off again, her sobs echoing up the stairwell as she leaves the flat.

_But I don't want to _be _here_, his mind sighs as the silence presses up against him. _At least, not alone_. John chooses to ignore his misgivings- a trick he picked up from his adventures with Sher- the consultant detective- and instead walks over to the window.

How many times had he walked in after a case to find his flatmate standing pensively by the window? John sighs as he glances out into the street. So many people, milling around. He wonders what they're thinking, what they're feeling, if they know the pain he's been through, if he can fathom their own losses. Sherl- his best friend would have known, he would have known with a single glance. But he's not his best friend, he's John Watson- he's the sidekick, the blogger, the one who's still alive.

He turns away with an abrupt spin of his heel, and instead collides painfully with the corner of the desk, rustling the papers on them. He tries not to look at the papers filled with numbers, the word _Moriarty _scribbled on them, or the newspaper dated the day before the incident. John takes a deep breath and holds it as he picks up the violin that lies on the table, discarded and coated in a thick layer of dust.

How many times he'd woken up at infernal hours in the morning, wishing he could burn that violin to a crisp! He brushes his fingers across the surface and touches the glossy surface of the violin, marveling at its craftsmanship. Sher-the detective had loved this violin, even though he'd probably deny any sort of affection for it. _It's an instrument_, _John_, he can almost hear the detective snort derisively, _t'would be foolish to attach such sentiment to an object_.

"Dunno what to do with that." John whirls to see Mrs. Hudson standing in the doorway again, her eyes suspiciously damp but holding out his notebook. "I should throw it away, I suppose, but he loved that violin so…"

"I don't know if he _loved _it, Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock always said he never loved anything."

"Well, he always created such lovely music," Mrs. Hudson sniffles, patting the corner of one eye. "He could have been a wonderful composer, don't you think?"

"He could have been," he agrees.

"Take it," Mrs. Hudson says.

"Sorry, what?"

"Take the violin. He would have wanted you to have it."

"Mrs. Hudson, I couldn't possibly…"

"Well, it's doing no good being here," she says, folding her arms across her purple sweater. "I can't play a note to save my life."

John looks at the violin and sees his reflection in the glossy wood. "Neither can I," he says at last.

"Take it anyway," she insists. "He would have wanted you to have it."

_You don't know what he would have wanted_, John wants to say, _nobody ever knew what he would have wanted except Moriarty and well, they're both dead now_. But he can't say any of that without sending Mrs. Hudson into another hysterical fit, and so he resigns himself to it. "Alright. I'll take the violin."

(Maybe a little piece of him wants to have a piece of his best friend a little bit longer, but John pushes the thought out of his head.)

…

"And how are you feeling now, John?"

He scowls at his therapist. "How much longer do I have to be here?"

"As long as it takes," she says serenely. "Until you're ready-"

"I'm ready," he says quickly.

"- and until I agree with your assessment," she finishes, frowning slightly at him. "John, you've been through a recent trauma."

"It's been six months."

"I have clients who've come in here for six _years_," she says, still using that aggravatingly calm tone of hers. "Things do not go away that easily."

He subsides into his armchair, twisting his fingers together. The only sound that can be heard in the room is the fire crackling, popping merrily. John is content to let the silence stretch out. He lives on silence, relishes it. (Sometimes he wishes that the sound of a violin or Sherlock yammering on about something related to a case or even gunshots into the wall would penetrate this wall of silence, but it never comes. On those days, John feels too alone.)

The woman clears her throat first. "What have you been up to, John? You mentioned last time that you were looking for a new job."

He tells her what he thinks she wants to hear. He tells her about the new job opportunity over in Manchester, tells her about visiting Harry, tells her about the new kid who's moved in above his new flat, the kid who's fond of blasting music with the bass turned up. (He doesn't mention his flatmate, the fall, Mrs. Hudson, Moriarty, or his nightmares. Oh, it'll come up. But he won't breach the subject first.)

An hour into their therapy session, she finally turns to the corner of his mind that he's so reluctant to access. "And how are you coping with Sherlock Holmes's death?" she asks, gently.

"Fine." His jaw clenches.

She glances to the side. "I see you have a package."

"It's a violin."

"Interesting." Her eyebrow quirks, and she makes a note. "I did not know you were interested in music, John."

"It's his." The moment those words slip out, he regrets it and groans inwardly. _Field day for a therapist. Fine job you've done, John_.

"Is it really?" Her eyebrow rises. "Can I see it?"

"No," he says too quickly, "I'd rather not anyone touch it until I get home."

His therapist makes another note. "Interesting," she says, but whether to herself or to him he doesn't really know. "John-"

"It's nothing," he interrupts, "really, nothing important. His landlady was just cleaning out Sherl- I mean, she was just doing spring cleaning and said he would have wanted me to have it." He realizes at the end of his convoluted sentence that his fists are clenched upon his knees.

"_Would_ he have wanted you to have it?"

"You say that like I would know the answer." John snorts. "Who knew what on earth he wanted? He-" And here John's voice catches. "He's- well. Nobody knew what he was thinking."

The therapist leans forward, steepling her fingers together. "Do you think having the violin will bring you closure to Sherlock's death?"

He hates that he had the exact same thought several hours earlier. "Yes. Maybe. I don't know."

Because honestly, he doesn't know. When it comes to Sherlock Holmes, that's the best policy.

…

He wakes up the next morning in a cold sweat. "Bloody-" He swings his feet out of bed and feels them hit the cold floor before he leans his elbows on his knees and drops his face into his hands.

He hates these nights, the nights where he wakes up wanting to scream. These are the nights where he literally just wants to run, run anywhere other than this tiny flat that doesn't have enough room to move in. The nightmares are relentless, assaulting, horrible to live through- nightmares of a man crying on a ledge, of a man crying in a battlefield, of men shouting for help as they are gunned down in battle, of men dangling off a rooftop, of people staring him right in the eyes as they scream their final breaths.

"_What would you say, if you were dying, if you were being murdered_?"

"_I'd say, 'Dear God, let me live_'."

He'd heard that phrase too many times out in the war, but there was another phrase he'd never forget as long as he lived. It echoed in his dreams, mingling with the terrified screams of dying men:

"_Goodbye_, _John_."

He glances over at the clock: 3.28 a.m., right on schedule as always.

Sighing, he stands up and tosses the blankets over to the side. There's no point in trying to sleep now, the last ninety-four times he's woken up from nightmares have taught him that. Instead, he shuffles over to the small kitchen, where he busies himself trying to make warm tea.

As the kettle begins to boil, his glance falls on the violin, propped up against the wall next to his pile of books. John wanders over to where it lies, picking it up and looking at it as the moonlight slants through the small window.

He can almost imagine S- Mycroft's brother's pale fingers ghosting over the violin, caressing it and fluttering as they set to work producing music. The detective had always had a flair about him, music virtuoso or not- when he put his mind to it, the violin was really more of an extended limb, always keen on doing whatever he wanted it to. John shoves this thought aside, hurls it out the window, in fact- the memory of his best friend standing by a rainy window playing a somber melody for the supposedly-fallen Irene Adler is too much to bear.

Thinking of his best friend playing a song in mourning makes John think of himself, and his mouth twists into a bitter smile at the parellels.

_I wonder_. He picks it up and hesitantly plucks a string.

It's not much, but it seems to hum, a sound that fills the entire apartment. It seems to lessen the tension in John's shoulders, at the very least, as though it is humming, _I know your pain, I was once part of him_.

John sits there for the rest of the night, fiddling and trying to play the violin. It's not great- he sounds terrible and he _knows _this- but it dispels the ghosts. For a while, he doesn't feel so alone, and the nightmares don't come back when he finally falls asleep.

It's a start.

…

By December, it's become something of a natural thing for John to pick the violin up and play a few songs (sheet music usually being printed off the Internet). He's sort of mastered 'Happy Birthday' and is currently working his way through 'Edelweiss' from the _Sound of Music_ (he pretends he doesn't know that his old flatmate used to play 'Edelweiss' whenever Mycroft came over, because Mycroft for some reason _hated _the _Sound of Music_).

So on New Year's Eve, when he arrives in Lestrade's apartment to celebrate a belated Christmas along with Molly and Mrs. Hudson, it's perfectly natural for him to bring the violin along. "Thought I'd maybe play a little," he says in response to Molly's curious glance.

"Never pegged you for a violin man," Lestrade comments, knocking back a beer. (He means, "I thought Sherlock was the one with the violin.")

John smiles. "Neither did I." (He means, "He was.")

John plays "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" for the group (and it's terrible but they try not to wince _too_ much) and looks so pleased with himself that they can't help but applaud gaily for the man who's tried so hard. "That was quite lovely, John," Mrs. Hudson says as cheerfully as she can.

"I think I could try-"

"Actually," Lestrade intervenes diplomatically (years of mediating between Donovan, Anderson and Sherlock has definitely trained him to identify potential conflicts), "why don't we try that later, mate? Presents are waiting to be exchanged and I've waited for an entire week-"

As Molly is sitting back down, receiving her present from Lestrade with a thankful smile, she pipes up, "Where'd you get that violin, John? It's quite lovely."

"It's Sher- ehm." John chokes on his words. "It's his."

The atmosphere in the room shifts, and there seems to be a fourth person in the room now as the tension builds. Mrs. Hudson finally breaks the horrible, horrible tension: "That's the violin from the flat, then?"

John nods, hating himself (and in some ways Molly but who could hate _Molly_?) for disrupting their lovely evening. Lestrade avoids his eyes, Molly suddenly looks miserable, and Mrs. Hudson's hands are trembling, a sure sign that she's about to cry. He wishes he could say something, anything to lighten the mood, but he has a feeling that he'd only make it worse, really.

God, when did he get the social skills of Sherl- ah no, he really shouldn't finish that thought in his head, should he.

Finally, Lestrade snaps back into reality after staring into space. "Well," he announces too brightly, "let's see what we have, shall we?" His forced cheer at least brings some sort of stability back into the group, and Molly's genuine excitement at being gifted a new set of glass vials and beakers from John pushes it back to normalcy. (They try not to remember that Sherlock broke most of her vials once conducting an experiment involving a mini-explosion and beans.)

At the end of the night, just as everyone is about to leave, Mrs. Hudson turns to John. "Could you-" she says, pointing at the violin.

"Give it back to you? Of course, Mrs. Hudson." John ignores the pang in his heart at giving up the violin, but he goes over to pick it up and hand it to her nevertheless.

"Oh no, love, what would I do with a violin?" Mrs. Hudson shakes her head. "No, I was wondering if you could play that piece Sherlock loved so much. It's by Mozart, isn't it?"

Considering that Mrs. Hudson once asked if Bach was a famous artist, John isn't holding out much hope for her being correct.

Molly comes to the rescue. "Perhaps she means Pachelbel's Canon," she suggests. "Sherlock used to talk about it all the time."

John hesitates. "I've never gotten all the way through it," he admits.

"Give it a shot," Lestrade says from the doorway.

Five minutes and some hasty searching on the Internet later, John is faced with an insurmountable task: playing one of the best known pieces in the world and in all of history. "This won't sound good," he warns.

Lestrade restrains the remark that leaps to his tongue and Molly tries not to grin.

He begins, slowly and painfully. But he gets it after five minutes (those lessons he used to take as a child paid off, after all), and he can play the first strains of the song. Then it builds, and John hesitates for a few seconds as he adjusts to the new tempo, the new, almost frenzied tempo of the violin as it sings, as it begs for its music to be released.

He is no virtuoso, and he is no Sherlock Holmes, who used to play the violin as though it were his own voice (sleek and smooth and _controlled_) but the piece brings tears to everyone's eyes nevertheless. Maybe it's because they can pretend that John, who's standing in the shadows, is Sherlock, alive and well. Or maybe it's because the playing is so honest- John is genuinely trying to do it the way he knows Sherlock would have wanted it to be.

At any rate, they all leave with a sense of relief at hearing something so familiar.

Everyone goes home with suspiciously damp eyes ("It's something in my eye," Lestrade claims as Molly looks at him curiously), and finally, John is alone in his new flat. His fingers touch the strings of the violin, gently plucks them as he sits by his window, engulfed in thought and memories.

The clock strikes midnight, and John lifts his glass of whiskey. "Happy New Year," he says aloud. "Wherever you are… Sherlock."

He can almost hear the other man sniff. _Happy New Year to you too, John, although I never understood the sentiment behind these things_.

John swallows the whiskey and turns back to the violin.

He plays it all night until he falls asleep.

The nightmares stop coming.

(In a way, Sherlock's saved him once again, he thinks in a semi-conscious moment as he wakes briefly, but the thought is gone when morning dawns.)

* * *

_You said I'm young, but I'm yours;_  
_ I am free, but I am flawed._  
_ I'm here in your heart,_  
_I was here from the start._

* * *

song used: "box of stones", benjamin francis leftwich. Hugs for those who understood why I picked it!

I totally meant for this to be two pages long... I think that spiraled out of control really fast.

Reviews, as always, are welcome. :)

Much love,  
ohlookrandom


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